ARTIST STATEMENT

The 2011 earthquake-tsunami off the Sendai coast in Japan, and the resulting Fukushima nuclear reactor meltdown, made international headlines the world over. It was one of the direst natural disasters of recent times. Yet today Japanese society has stoically subdued continuing anxieties over these traumatizing events, and despite the prolonged environmental effects of radiation fallout, daily life superficially returns to normal.

This catastrophe and her fellow countrymen’s apparent inability to openly discuss the adversity, is the context against which Bangkok-based Japanese artist Eri Imamura creates her poignant fiber installation The Nippon Phenomenon.

An artist who strives to reconcile the material entrapment of urbanism with an animistic desire to reconnect with nature, her elaborately crafted vibrant textile compositions employ expertise gained from formal schooling in classic kimono design and pueblo beading artistry. She is also influenced by the spiritualism in traditional Japanese tattoo designs.

Physically disconnected from the tragedy, Imamura subverts geographic distance by submerging her psyche into the surreal fictional world of Manga. Conscious to Japan’s centuries-old visual history of story telling that transcend to the pulp Manga illustrations she grew up consuming, she expresses empathy and disillusionment by mythologizing herself into a combative superhero to overcome the unseen radioactive threat.

In The Nippon Phenomenon, Imamura has created a new interconnected narrative series of six beaded wall hangings from original antique kimono cloth. The installation comprises three-pairs of life-size soft sculpture torsos replete with vibrant doe-eyed cartoon characters and expressive iconography. Looming above are toxic radiation clouds, all fronted by an ocean floor of ticker tape and beads shaped into symbolic wave and radiation imagery.

Beneath the bold Pop veneer and Manga semiotics, Imamura explores how trauma is dealt with on a personal, collective, and national level. Within this delicate and highly emotive subject are associations to cultural coding and social conformism –including gender stereotyping. Her vibrant textural forms are also layered with psychological indicators to denial, escapism, resilience, fallibility, and healing.

Re-contextualising antique kimono tailoring techniques and Japanese tattoo designs with Native American beading aesthetics and construction, Imamura’s three-dimensional torso forms combine cross-cultural artisan heritage to manifest an idiosyncratic creative methodology. Spending three-months to produce a single piece, her meticulous hands-on production process is testament to how a contemporary artist can preserve and reinvigorate marginal craft forms into something imaginatively heterogeneous and truly breathtaking.

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1977 in Tokyo, Japan

Education

2007

  • AA in Indigenous Studies, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe – Highest Honors, Focus in traditional beading

2003-2005

  • Native American Studies classes, University of New Mexico

2001

  • BA in Textile Arts, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music

Publications

  • 2012 Rupert Ravens’ Top 10 at the 2012 Basel Art Fairs, dArt International, Volume 15, Number 1, Fall/Winter 2012
  • 2011 Fiber Arts, Mollie Baker. April 2011
  • 2009 News wings, Staci Golar. March 2009
  • 2007 Fiber Arts, Hollis Walker. Sept 2008, pp. 5-57
  • 2008 Wheel me out, Victoria Ford. Aug 2008
  • 2008 Pasatienpo, Elizabeth Cook-Romero. The New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, pp.42-44.

Honors and Awards

2011

  • Third place, “Fantastic Fiber 2011”, Yeiser Art Center, Paduca, Kentucky, For “LOVE; Female Torso”

2009

  • The Janine Brink Meyer Memorial Prize, “Head and Toe”, St Louis Artists Guild, St Louis, Missouri

2007

  • First Place, Beadwork Division, Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta 2007, Albuquerque New Mexico, for Tabi-Moccasins
  • Third Place, Beadwork Division, Albuquerque Fiber Arts Fiesta 2007, Albuquerque New Mexico, for the Spiral Force-Japanese Moccasin
  • Honors Exhibition in IAIA Museum
  • Merit Award Scholarship, Institute of American Indian Art, for academic excellence

2006

  • Honors Exhibition in IAIA Museum

Exhibits

2016

  • Solo show, The Nippon Phenomenon Project; Art Stage Singapore, Singapore

2015

  • Art Jakarta, Indonesia

2014

  • Singapore Art Fair
  • SCOPE New York, USA

2013

  • SCOPE New York, USA
  • SCOPE Basel, Switzerland

2012

  • SCOPE Miami, USA
  • SCOPE Basel, Switzerland

2011

  • Juried Show “Fantastic Fiber 2011”, Yeiser Art Center, Paduca, Kentucky, USA

2009

  • SOFA Chicago, Navy Pier, Chicago, Missouri
  • Juried Show “Head to Toe”, St Louis Artists Guild, St Louis, Missouri, USA

2008

  • SOFA Chicago, Navy Pier, Chicago, Missouri, USA
  • Solo Exhibition, Jane Sauer Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

2007

  • IAIA Students Booth, Indian Market, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
  • Graduation Exhibition 2007, Primitive Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
  • Exhibition “Facing Reality”, Primitive Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
  • Exhibition “The Winter Show 2007”, Primitive Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

2006

  • Exhibition, The little Road Flower Gallery, Taos, New Mexico, USA
  • Exhibition, Fort Collins Museum, Colorado, USA
  • IAIA Students Booth, Indian Market, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
  • Exhibition “The Winter Show 2006”, Primitive Edge Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA

2002

  • Exhibition “The poetic spectacle of imaginative power”, Inter Natural Garden Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

2001

  • Graduation Exhibition, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

Video Pieces

  • Featured artist in short film “Catching the light”, a Canadian-American production
  • Featured artist in short film “Coo-Contrast”, a video piece on the Space Art Project

Collections

  • UBS, Puerto Rico
  • Fidelity Investment public collection in New Mexico, USA
  • Private collections in Canada, Japan, Singapore, The Nethelands and the United States